Archive for the ‘Jerusalem’ Category

Israels startup community has inaugurated its first gadget library. The Jerusalem venue, called The Device Lab, has cutting-edge technologies and devices on loan for entrepreneurs and students to try out their ideas.

US colleges have long offered their academic communities the opportunity to come try out new and old technologies on an array of gadgets and computers at so-called gadget libraries.

Now, Israeli developers new and veteran have a library of their own in which to tinker about.

Intel Israel, the government, the Jerusalem municipality and a group of young Jerusalemites known as Tzeirim Bamerkaz are backing the new project at 22 Shivtey Israel Street.

On loan are smartwatches and laptops, 3D cameras, smart computer chips, gaming computers, tablets, and Android and iOS smartphones by top brands such as Lenovo, Intel, Asus, Apple, Tag Heuer, RealSense and Edison. The librarys collection will constantly evolve.

Jerusalems gadget lab is a place for exploration without breaking the bank. Photo courtesy of Intel Israel

The new gadget library provides an international starting point for the young and innovative entrepreneurs in Jerusalem. Whoever succeeds in Jerusalem will succeed in the world, Mayor Nir Barkat said in a statement.

Jerusalems startup ecosystem is growing all the time. In 2012, there were no accelerators in the city, according to Made in Jerusalem organization for the citys entrepreneurs. To date, there are 15 startup hubs and accelerators in Jerusalem, according to Made in Jerusalem.

With the new gadget library now open, students and early-stage entrepreneurs no longer need to break the bank to try their ideas on new devices.

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, center, and other dignitaries at the ribbon-cutting for The Device Lab. Photo courtesy of Intel Israel

An annual subscription costs $212 and devices are loaned out for different amounts of time depending on demand.

Organizers say the library lab will also be a venue for demos, workshops and lectures.

We are very pleased that we have the chance to promote technology and entrepreneurship in Jerusalem, said Shahaf Kiselstein, Intels Vice President for Platform Engineering. A vibrant entrepreneurial community is an important asset for Jerusalem.

The back story behind the Cape Verde volte-face this month on whether it will or will not continue to vote against Israel at the UN shines an instructive light on the challenges and sensitivities Israel faces as it tries to move back into Africa in a significant way.

On August 2, the Prime Ministers Office put out a statement saying that Cape Verde, an archipelago of 10 islands off the coast of West Africa, had announced it would no longer vote against Israel at the UN.

The statement attributed this to two reasons: intensive diplomatic efforts and a meeting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had with the countrys President Jorge Carlos Fonseca in June at a summit meeting of the Economic Community of West African States African States in Monrovia, Liberia.

Netanyahu took the additional step of highlighting the Cape Verde development at the cabinet meeting the following Sunday, saying it was very important and an indication of the success of his policy of prioritizing relations with Africa.

While some may question the importance of a state of just over half a million people voting for Israel at the UN, it is not of negligible impact, one diplomatic official said, because it is a small step that added up with other small steps in Africa over the last year and planned ones in the coming months creates a critical mass that significantly changes the situation for Israel in Africa.

Other small steps include Netanyahus visit to Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and Ethiopia in July 2016; his visit to the ECOWAS summit in Liberia in June; the constant parade of African prime ministers and foreign ministers coming to Jerusalem and even the quickness with which Israel dispatched aid to Sierra Leone following the devastating mudslide there last Monday.

Taken individually, each of these steps seems relatively unimportant. Put together, however, they represent a bigger trend of vastly improved ties with Africa that has significant implications for Israel diplomatically.

This trend has also been identified by Israels adversaries, which is why there is starting to be significant push-back, such as opposition by the Palestinian Authority and Morocco to a planned Israel-Africa summit in Togo in October.

The only problem with the Prime Ministers Offices announcement that Cape Verde has decided to change its voting pattern on Israel was that a week later, Fonseca seemed to walk it back in a convoluted Facebook post in which he said he never talked about this with Netanyahu in Liberia.

So what really happened? Inquiries into the matter revealed the following developments: Israel, well aware of the sensitivity of these types of issues, generally does not trumpet decisions such as the Cape Verde one, knowing that once they are announced there will be all kinds of counter-pressure to cancel them.

The Cape Verde decision to change its voting pattern was relayed to Israeli diplomats in March, following intensive consultations. Neither country announced the move.

Someone, however, got wind of the change and leaked it to local paper in Cape Verde which reported it on August 1. Israeli diplomatic sources believed it was leaked in an attempt to torpedo the change.

Once the story was out in Cape Verde, however, the feeling in Jerusalem was that there was a need to acknowledge it and thank the Cape Verde president. As a result, the Prime Ministers Office issued its statement.

But the statement was not entirely accurate. Yes, the country did decide to change its voting patterns, but it did not come about as a result of the meeting between Netanyahu and Fonseca in Monrovia.

While to outsiders, that little fact does not make a big difference, in Cape Verde a country where there is a semi-presidential system of government and constant friction between the executive and legislative branches over who gets to determine policy that the president would unilaterally make this type of decision was a huge bone of contention.

This was evident in Fonsecas Facebook post, in which he said he recognizes that the government meaning the prime minister and legislative branch is the responsible entity for the implementation of the countrys foreign policy.

Fonseca clarified that during his meeting with Netanyahu in Monrovia the question of how his country would vote did not come up.

This was important for him to stress because it shows that he was not trying to usurp powers not his own.

This, he indicated in the post, was not his competency.

In other words, Fonsecas Facebook post was more a result of internal battles over who gets to decide what in Cape Verde than a denial that the country will no longer vote against Israel at the UN.

Nowhere in the Facebook post, one diplomatic official pointed out, did the president deny that there would be a change in Cape Verdes voting pattern.

Hopefully, he said, the West African country has not gone back on this, stressing that the importance is not necessarily that such a decision would have earth-shattering diplomatic significance, but rather because it represents another small step toward building a critical mass of support for Israel inside Africa.

Amos Oz, one of Israels greatest living novelists, wrote in his autobiography, A Tale of Love and Darkness, about how his painfully distant father danced with him in the streets of Jerusalem on Nov. 29, 1947 the day that the United Nations voted to create a Jewish state. Later that night, still drenched with sweat and with his clothes still on, the young Amos got into bed. To his shock, his father got in with him.

The father told the young boy that night how Polish children had treated him in school, stealing his pants and ridiculing him for being a Jew. Then, in a rare nocturnal moment of intimacy, he said to his son: Bullies may well bother you in the street or at school someday … because you are a bit like me. But from now on, from the moment we have our own state, you will never be bullied just because you are a Jew. … Not that. Never again. From tonight thats finished here. Forever.

Israelis know well that Jew-hatred fuels much of the continuing Arab assault on the Jewish state. But worry about anti-Semitism outside the region and unrelated to the conflict is ballast we have long-since jettisoned.

This summer, I taught a course at Jerusalems Shalem College on foundational American texts. We read the Declaration of Independence; some Federalist Papers including James Madisons Federalist No. 10 on the danger of factions; Abraham Lincolns 1838 Lyceum Address on the rule of the mob; the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.s Letter From Birmingham Jail; Ta-Nehisi Coatess Between the World and Me; and more.

To illustrate how alive the issues raised in these texts remain, this week I had the students a highly knowledgeable group of undergraduates watch video footage of Charlottesville. They sat stunned as they watched the parade of the torches, an image they understood. When I explained that the men with flak jackets, helmets and semiautomatic weapons were the protesters, not the police, they were incredulous. When the Nazi flags appeared, the room was silent except for the sounds of the protesters onscreen.

Then the video cut to one of the marchers, who explained their republican principles. The first was the supremacy of white culture. The students listened, disgusted. The second was free-market capitalism. Still, they were quiet. Then, the third principle, the protester said, was killing Jews. The entire class burst into laughter.

Stunned, I paused the video. Even with the video stilled, they were chuckling. I asked them what they found so amusing. Finally, one student said: What, does this guy believe that in todays world you can just go out and kill Jews? Its funny, thats all.

It is, of course, not funny at all, but I chose to focus their attention on the history behind their laughter. You, I said, are actually the living embodiment of that new Jew of whom Nordau and Jabotinsky wrote. People say they hate blacks, and you watch in stunned, horrified silence. They say theyre going to kill Jews, and you laugh. Israel has normalized Jewish existence in ways of which the headlines rarely remind us.

Not everyone is equally complacent. The morning after Mr. Trumps Tuesday news conference in which he walked back the conciliatory tone of his Monday statement, I woke up to an email from our 27-year-old son Avi, studying law at Hebrew University after eight years in the army.

Has the day arrived? was the subject. I have a very clear memory from 7th grade of coming home from school after several hours of classes on the Holocaust, he wrote. I remember saying to you, Abba, I dont understand why we spend so much time learning about the Holocaust. It can never happen again and the U.S. will always be there to protect us. As the years went by, I wondered if I would live to see the day when America would no longer be there for us anymore. I thought about that a lot during my time in the army. Today, for the first time in my life, I asked myself if that day had arrived.

Has it? I pray not, though it is too early to tell. But here is what we do know. The tiny, embattled country our family now calls home has raised a generation of young people to understand that ultimately, the only people who can be fully trusted to safeguard the safety of the Jews are the Jews. For having afforded our children a chance to grow up with no sense of the vulnerability that we knew growing up in America, we owe Israel and its founders a profound debt of gratitude. It is a debt that I dont believe we fully appreciated until Charlottesville and its disgraceful aftermath.

Daniel Gordis (@danielgordis) is the Koret Distinguished Fellow at Shalem College in Jerusalem. His latest book is Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn.

Israels Supreme Court froze implementation of a law legalising Jewish settlements built on private Palestinian land, which the UN labelled a thick red line. The decision was condemned by right-wing Israeli politicians, who accused the judiciary of overruling the will of Israels Parliament. The legalisation law was passed in February and it attracted global condemnation.AFP

The ultra-Orthodox group Eda Haredit does not believe in the State of Israel, Zionism or the Israeli army. One of its most prominent members, Rabbi Mordechai Mintzberg, says the group will never sell out, unlike the rest of the Haredi public

Diab, a resident of the northern Israeli city of Haifa, told Maan that Israeli forces had searched and kept her under the scorching sun for hours on Thursday, without providing a reason. She was then detained and transferred to interrogations at an Israeli police station in Jerusalem.

She was released on bail the following day under the condition that she not enter Jerusalem city for one month.

Diab told Maan that on Thursday when she had arrived at the entrance of the Old City at Damascus Gate Israeli soldiers surrounded me and demanded that I stand to the side.

They then took my bag and searched it and I was led toward a female soldier who searched me as well. They kept me standing under the sun for hours before transferring me for interrogations, Diab said.

Diab said that the interrogations lasted for seven consecutive hours.

She also noted that the interrogations were focused on her activities as a journalist and her writings for the Lebanese newspaper al-Binaa.

An Israeli police spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.

Israeli authorities have often been the target of criticism for their longstanding crackdown on Palestinians freedoms of expression, which has led to the detention of scores of Palestinian journalists.

BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Two Palestinians were detained on Thursday night at al-Zaim checkpoint east of Jerusalem after a Palestinian from occupied East Jerusalem attempted to smuggle a Palestinian from the occupied West Bank into Israeli-controlled Jerusalem.

Israeli spokesperson Luba al-Samri said that the Palestinian Jerusalemite was hiding a Palestinian in his twenties from the West Bank district of Hebron in the trunk of his car, in an attempt to smuggle the Palestinian into East Jerusalem without an Israeli-issued permit.

Al-Samri said that the driver was a 35-year-old Palestinian from the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Issawiya.

Both Palestinians were detained and transferred to interrogations with Israeli authorities, she said.

While the international community recognizes East Jerusalem as an integral part of Palestinian territory, Israel officially annexed East Jerusalem — the future capital of any independent Palestinian state — in 1980.

Israels annexation, checkpoints, and illegal separation wall has forced Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza to obtain Israeli-issued permits to enter East Jerusalem and Israel.

Meanwhile, Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem, who hold blue identification cards, are allowed to pass Israeli checkpoints without permits and are permitted to drive Israeli cars — marked with a yellow license plate, whereas Palestinians with West Bank IDs would be detained by both Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) should they be found driving an Israeli car.

However, Palestinians in East Jerusalem are not considered Israeli citizens, and instead hold temporary residency status, which can be revoked by Israeli authorities for various reasons. Thousands of Palestinians have had their Jerusalem IDs rescinded over the years.

Analysts have pointed out that Israels permit system has cemented a regime of separation in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory, as the color of a Palestinians ID dictates where they can live, where they are allowed to travel, and even which roads they are permitted to drive on.

Others have noted that the system is focused on splitting up the Palestinian population, in a divide and conquer tactic, in order to erode the Palestinian identity and prevent future unification or popular movements against Israeli policies.

Rasmea Odeh, 70, from Chicago, on Thursday was ordered by the District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan in Detroit to be deported for lying on her US citizenship application. Odeh, who was born in the Arab village of Lifta, on the outskirts of Jerusalem, neglected to tell immigration authorities she was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and had spent 10 years in Israeli security prison for her involvement in the 1969 PFLP bombings in Jerusalem in which two people were killed.

She spent 10 years in prison out of her life sentence, before being released in a prisoner exchange with the PFLP in 1980 (Thank you, Mr. Begin).

She then went to America, got her US immigrant visa in 1994 and became a citizen in 2004, lying both times about her criminal past. In 2014, Odeh pleaded guilty to falsifying her immigration applications and admitted that she lied about her criminal history.

US District Judge Gershwin A. Drain ruled that Odeh be deported to her home country of Jordan and will be barred for life from re-entering the US.

She told the court, in her defense: Dreams were turned into a nightmare and Zionists killed women and children without consideration and turned us into strangers in our own country, adding that the Israeli occupation of Palestine is a crime. The judge, for his part, interrupted her three times to tell her that the case is about false statements only.

Which was unfair, really, since all she did was make false statements.

The judge also fined Odeh $1,000, to show, as he put it, that there are consequences for lying on immigration paperwork making it a bizarre trajectory where the criminal goes downhill from murdering innocent civilians in a supermarket to lying on applications.

According to the Chicago Tribune, in Chicago, Odeh is widely respected for her work with Arab immigrants.

Was she preparing them for filling out their immigration applications?

With thousands of Israelis currently on vacation in Barcelona at the height of the summer tourism season, Jerusalem carefully monitored the situation there following Thursdays terrorist attack, trying to track down all Israelis believed to be in the area.

As of 9:30 p.m. Israeli time, the Foreign Ministry put the number of Israelis who had not yet made contact with relatives in Israel at 31, and said there was no immediate indication that any Israelis were injured in the attack, which took place in the vicinity of the Maccabi kosher restaurant.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is also the countrys foreign minister, went to the ministrys situation room soon after the attack to monitor developments and speak by video conference with Israels ambassador in Madrid, Daniel Kutner.

Netanyahu strongly condemned the attack, saying that tonight we saw again that terrorism strikes everywhere, and the civilized world must fight it together to defeat it.

The Israeli Embassy dispatched a delegation of three diplomats to Barcelona in case any of the Israelis there were in need of assistance.

Chief Rabbi of Barcelona Meir Bar-Hen said that all community events would be canceled, and that he was headed to the scene of the attack to offer his services. Bar- Hen said that it did not appear that Jews were targeted.

Our hearts are with the victims and we wish them a full and speedy recovery, Bar-Hen said, adding that the Jewish community has faith in the Spanish security forces, which are doing all they can to secure the communitys institutions.

Victor Sorenssen, the spokesperson for the Jewish community of Barcelona, told The Jerusalem Post that the Jewish institutions in the city were following the recommendations of the authorities to close for the next 24 hours as a precautionary measure. He expected that the synagogues would reopen by Shabbat.

Theres a lot of confusion beyond the sadness and the shock, he said, noting that this is the first terrorist attack Barcelona has seen in many years, the last one carried out by Basque terrorist group ETA.

So people are pretty scared… people arent used to it, Sorenssen said, noting the similarity of Thursdays attack with attacks that have struck other European cities in recent months.

Sorenssen echoed Bar-Hens remark that the kosher restaurant did not appear to have been a target of the attack.

I think it was not a target of the attack because in Las Ramblas there are all kinds of restaurants in the area… at least from what we know there is no relation.

He said that he did not expect that the Jewish institutions would increase their security measures as they are already guarded by police and private security.

Avigayil Heimowitz, an Israeli tourist, was close to the scene of the attack when it happened. I just saw people begin to run and so I ran too, without knowing what was happening, she told the Post.

She described a scene of hysteria, and a high presence of police and helicopters.

Her friend, Avital Stein, had been shopping at a store nearby, when the shop suddenly closed.

I saw people running and didnt understand [what was happening] until the store I was in just decided to close, she told the Post. I asked what was going on and he [store employee] said there was an attack.

A Chabad representative told the Post that his institute is located close to the scene of the attack, and that members of the Chabad staff were trying to reach the area to see if they were any Jewish casualties but that the police would not let them enter.

If there are Jews there, we will try to find them and help them however we can, he said. We are waiting for the incident to be over.

He confirmed that all Jewish institutes had closed until they received further instruction.

Rabbi Dovid Libersohn, director of Chabad Lubavitch de Barcelona, which provides kosher certification to Maccabi, called it a terrible situation, and said we pray for the injured and for the families of those who were killed, and we are grateful, thank God, that nobody at the restaurant was harmed.

Magen David Adom spokesman Zaki Heller said that from the moment we received reports of the terrorist attack in Barcelona, Magen David Adom has been in contact with the Foreign Affairs Ministry, the Red Cross and the security wing of Chabad. At this moment, it is not known whether Israelis or Jews were wounded in the attack, but that MDA was prepared to swiftly dispatch any medical response that may be required, as it has done in similar incidents.

Shaul Hemo, CEO and owner of ART Tourism, spoke with The Israel Project about his experience at the Starbucks on the open pedestrian mall Las Ramblas, where the attack occurred.

We have 600 Israeli clients all over the city, Hemo said.

He himself was among the scores of Israelis who were in Las Ramblas at the time of the attack, many of whom ran into nearby stores for safety and were then locked in for over an hour by the police.

It was about 5 p.m. lunch time and it was crowded, Hemo said. I was in Starbucks. I saw a lot of people running, hysterical, panicking. A car just smashed the people on the street. We are not used to it; it is the first time there was a terrorist attack in Barcelona.

Limor Hasson told Channel 2 that she was in the Maccabi restaurant at the time of the attack.

We had gone in to eat, she said. A woman came in and started yelling that there had been a terrorist attack. I understood it was a vehicular attack and they locked us in.

Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely quickly condemned the attack in Barcelona, posting on Twitter: I condemn this deplorable act of terror and senseless death, and stand with Spain with prayers for the fast recovery of the victims.

Diaspora Affairs Minister Naftali Bennett spoke to the head of the Spanish Jewish community.

I conveyed to him my condolences and prayers for the wounded, and made it clear that the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs would aid the community in any way possible, Bennett said. At times like this, it is important to understand Islamic terror is attacking the values of freedom and democracy, in Barcelona, London, Paris and Jerusalem. The West must stand strong in the face of terror and defeat it wherever needed.

The European Jewish Congress released a statement strongly condemning the attack.

We are yet again witness to another terrorist attack in Europe perpetrated against innocent civilians, said congress president Dr. Moshe Kantor. They are choosing to strike again at our zest for life and our basic freedoms with their cult of death. It is becoming increasingly difficult to prevent this abuse of regular vehicles as their chosen instrument of murder. We stand with the Spanish people, and urge the authorities to bring to justice those who perpetrated this savage attack, including those who inspired it and those whose incitement encouraged it.

Speaking on behalf of the Jewish communities of Europe, the organization said it extends its deepest condolences to the families of the victims and wishes a speedy and full recovery to those injured.

World Jewish Congress president Ronald S. Lauder said: Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims of this attack and their families, and with all the people of Barcelona.

“We are monitoring the events as they unfold with care and concern, and are in touch with the local Jewish community and its security groups. We pray that there will be no more victims.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews released a statement, with senior vice president Richard Verber saying: We utterly condemn this brutal attack by terrorists intent on murdering and maiming innocent pedestrians in Barcelona. People of all faiths and none must come together to defeat this evil.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center condemned the attack as well as its apparent anti-Jewish component, despite other indications that the kosher restaurant was not the target.

It is still unclear if this was a cell of lone wolves or terrorists trained by ISIS, but the brutal targeting of tourists and Jewish institutions follow a pattern of attacks that include Pariss Hyperkasher Supermarket and the Brussels Jewish Museum, center officials said.

We grieve for the families of the innocents, whatever faith or nationality, and urge Spanish authorities to secure Jewish institutions in their country, it added. It is also past due for the European Union and their member states to acknowledge and take action to curb burgeoning antisemitism in the mainstream of their societies and across the Internet.

Israels startup community has inaugurated its first gadget library. The Jerusalem venue, called The Device Lab, has cutting-edge technologies and devices on loan for entrepreneurs and students to try out their ideas. US colleges have long offered their academic communities the opportunity to come try out new and old technologies on an array of gadgets and computers at so-called gadget libraries. Now, Israeli developers new and veteran have a library of their own in which to tinker about. Intel Israel, the government, the Jerusalem municipality and a group of young Jerusalemites known as Tzeirim Bamerkaz are backing the new project at 22 Shivtey Israel Street. On loan are smartwatches and laptops, 3D cameras, smart computer chips, gaming computers, tablets, and Android and iOS smartphones by top brands such as Lenovo, Intel, Asus, Apple, Tag Heuer, RealSense and Edison. The librarys collection will constantly evolve. Jerusalems gadget lab is a place for exploration without breaking the bank. Photo courtesy of Intel Israel The new gadget library provides an international starting point for the young and innovative entrepreneurs in Jerusalem. Whoever succeeds in Jerusalem will succeed in the world, Mayor Nir Barkat said in a statement. Jerusalems startup ecosystem is growing all the time. In 2012, there were no accelerators in the city, according to Made in Jerusalem organization for the citys entrepreneurs. To date, there are 15 startup hubs and accelerators in Jerusalem, according to Made in Jerusalem. With the new gadget library now open, students and early-stage entrepreneurs no longer need to break the bank to try their ideas on new devices. Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, center, and other dignitaries at the ribbon-cutting for The Device Lab. Photo courtesy of Intel Israel An annual subscription costs $212 and devices are loaned out for different amounts of time depending on demand. Organizers say the library lab will also be a venue for demos, workshops and lectures. We are very pleased that we have the chance to promote technology and entrepreneurship in Jerusalem, said Shahaf Kiselstein, Intels Vice President for Platform Engineering. A vibrant entrepreneurial community is an important asset for Jerusalem.

Flag of Cape Verde. (photo credit:Wikimedia Commons) The back story behind the Cape Verde volte-face this month on whether it will or will not continue to vote against Israel at the UN shines an instructive light on the challenges and sensitivities Israel faces as it tries to move back into Africa in a significant way. On August 2, the Prime Ministers Office put out a statement saying that Cape Verde, an archipelago of 10 islands off the coast of West Africa, had announced it would no longer vote against Israel at the UN. The statement attributed this to two reasons: intensive diplomatic efforts and a meeting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had with the countrys President Jorge Carlos Fonseca in June at a summit meeting of the Economic Community of West African States African States in Monrovia, Liberia. Netanyahu took the additional step of highlighting the Cape Verde development at the cabinet meeting the following Sunday, saying it was very important and an indication of the success of his policy of prioritizing relations with Africa. While some may question the importance of a state of just over half a million people voting for Israel at the UN, it is not of negligible impact, one diplomatic official said, because it is a small step that added up with other small steps in Africa over the last year and planned ones in the coming months creates a critical mass that significantly changes the situation for Israel in Africa. Other small steps include Netanyahus visit to Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and Ethiopia in July 2016; his visit to the ECOWAS summit in Liberia in June; the constant parade of African prime ministers and foreign ministers coming to Jerusalem and even the quickness with which Israel dispatched aid to Sierra Leone following the devastating mudslide there last Monday. Taken individually, each of these steps seems relatively unimportant. Put together, however, they represent a bigger trend of vastly improved ties with Africa that has significant implications for Israel diplomatically. This trend has also been identified by Israels adversaries, which is why there is starting to be significant push-back, such as opposition by the Palestinian Authority and Morocco to a planned Israel-Africa summit in Togo in October. The only problem with the Prime Ministers Offices announcement that Cape Verde has decided to change its voting pattern on Israel was that a week later, Fonseca seemed to walk it back in a convoluted Facebook post in which he said he never talked about this with Netanyahu in Liberia. So what really happened? Inquiries into the matter revealed the following developments: Israel, well aware of the sensitivity of these types of issues, generally does not trumpet decisions such as the Cape Verde one, knowing that once they are announced there will be all kinds of counter-pressure to cancel them. The Cape Verde decision to change its voting pattern was relayed to Israeli diplomats in March, following intensive consultations. Neither country announced the move. Someone, however, got wind of the change and leaked it to local paper in Cape Verde which reported it on August 1. Israeli diplomatic sources believed it was leaked in an attempt to torpedo the change. Once the story was out in Cape Verde, however, the feeling in Jerusalem was that there was a need to acknowledge it and thank the Cape Verde president. As a result, the Prime Ministers Office issued its statement. But the statement was not entirely accurate. Yes, the country did decide to change its voting patterns, but it did not come about as a result of the meeting between Netanyahu and Fonseca in Monrovia. While to outsiders, that little fact does not make a big difference, in Cape Verde a country where there is a semi-presidential system of government and constant friction between the executive and legislative branches over who gets to determine policy that the president would unilaterally make this type of decision was a huge bone of contention. This was evident in Fonsecas Facebook post, in which he said he recognizes that the government meaning the prime minister and legislative branch is the responsible entity for the implementation of the countrys foreign policy. Fonseca clarified that during his meeting with Netanyahu in Monrovia the question of how his country would vote did not come up. This was important for him to stress because it shows that he was not trying to usurp powers not his own. This, he indicated in the post, was not his competency. In other words, Fonsecas Facebook post was more a result of internal battles over who gets to decide what in Cape Verde than a denial that the country will no longer vote against Israel at the UN. Nowhere in the Facebook post, one diplomatic official pointed out, did the president deny that there would be a change in Cape Verdes voting pattern. Hopefully, he said, the West African country has not gone back on this, stressing that the importance is not necessarily that such a decision would have earth-shattering diplomatic significance, but rather because it represents another small step toward building a critical mass of support for Israel inside Africa. Share on facebook

Amos Oz, one of Israels greatest living novelists, wrote in his autobiography, A Tale of Love and Darkness, about how his painfully distant father danced with him in the streets of Jerusalem on Nov. 29, 1947 the day that the United Nations voted to create a Jewish state. Later that night, still drenched with sweat and with his clothes still on, the young Amos got into bed. To his shock, his father got in with him. The father told the young boy that night how Polish children had treated him in school, stealing his pants and ridiculing him for being a Jew. Then, in a rare nocturnal moment of intimacy, he said to his son: Bullies may well bother you in the street or at school someday … because you are a bit like me. But from now on, from the moment we have our own state, you will never be bullied just because you are a Jew. … Not that. Never again. From tonight thats finished here. Forever. Israelis know well that Jew-hatred fuels much of the continuing Arab assault on the Jewish state. But worry about anti-Semitism outside the region and unrelated to the conflict is ballast we have long-since jettisoned. This summer, I taught a course at Jerusalems Shalem College on foundational American texts. We read the Declaration of Independence; some Federalist Papers including James Madisons Federalist No. 10 on the danger of factions; Abraham Lincolns 1838 Lyceum Address on the rule of the mob; the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.s Letter From Birmingham Jail; Ta-Nehisi Coatess Between the World and Me; and more. To illustrate how alive the issues raised in these texts remain, this week I had the students a highly knowledgeable group of undergraduates watch video footage of Charlottesville. They sat stunned as they watched the parade of the torches, an image they understood. When I explained that the men with flak jackets, helmets and semiautomatic weapons were the protesters, not the police, they were incredulous. When the Nazi flags appeared, the room was silent except for the sounds of the protesters onscreen. Then the video cut to one of the marchers, who explained their republican principles. The first was the supremacy of white culture. The students listened, disgusted. The second was free-market capitalism. Still, they were quiet. Then, the third principle, the protester said, was killing Jews. The entire class burst into laughter. Stunned, I paused the video. Even with the video stilled, they were chuckling. I asked them what they found so amusing. Finally, one student said: What, does this guy believe that in todays world you can just go out and kill Jews? Its funny, thats all. It is, of course, not funny at all, but I chose to focus their attention on the history behind their laughter. You, I said, are actually the living embodiment of that new Jew of whom Nordau and Jabotinsky wrote. People say they hate blacks, and you watch in stunned, horrified silence. They say theyre going to kill Jews, and you laugh. Israel has normalized Jewish existence in ways of which the headlines rarely remind us. Not everyone is equally complacent. The morning after Mr. Trumps Tuesday news conference in which he walked back the conciliatory tone of his Monday statement, I woke up to an email from our 27-year-old son Avi, studying law at Hebrew University after eight years in the army. Has the day arrived? was the subject. I have a very clear memory from 7th grade of coming home from school after several hours of classes on the Holocaust, he wrote. I remember saying to you, Abba, I dont understand why we spend so much time learning about the Holocaust. It can never happen again and the U.S. will always be there to protect us. As the years went by, I wondered if I would live to see the day when America would no longer be there for us anymore. I thought about that a lot during my time in the army. Today, for the first time in my life, I asked myself if that day had arrived. Has it? I pray not, though it is too early to tell. But here is what we do know. The tiny, embattled country our family now calls home has raised a generation of young people to understand that ultimately, the only people who can be fully trusted to safeguard the safety of the Jews are the Jews. For having afforded our children a chance to grow up with no sense of the vulnerability that we knew growing up in America, we owe Israel and its founders a profound debt of gratitude. It is a debt that I dont believe we fully appreciated until Charlottesville and its disgraceful aftermath. Daniel Gordis (@danielgordis) is the Koret Distinguished Fellow at Shalem College in Jerusalem. His latest book is Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn.

Israels Supreme Court froze implementation of a law legalising Jewish settlements built on private Palestinian land, which the UN labelled a thick red line. The decision was condemned by right-wing Israeli politicians, who accused the judiciary of overruling the will of Israels Parliament. The legalisation law was passed in February and it attracted global condemnation.AFP

The Last Jewish Community Holding Out Against Zionism The ultra-Orthodox group Eda Haredit does not believe in the State of Israel, Zionism or the Israeli army. One of its most prominent members, Rabbi Mordechai Mintzberg, says the group will never sell out, unlike the rest of the Haredi public

Palestinian journalist Sabrin Diab Diab, a resident of the northern Israeli city of Haifa, told Maan that Israeli forces had searched and kept her under the scorching sun for hours on Thursday, without providing a reason. She was then detained and transferred to interrogations at an Israeli police station in Jerusalem. She was released on bail the following day under the condition that she not enter Jerusalem city for one month. Diab told Maan that on Thursday when she had arrived at the entrance of the Old City at Damascus Gate Israeli soldiers surrounded me and demanded that I stand to the side. They then took my bag and searched it and I was led toward a female soldier who searched me as well. They kept me standing under the sun for hours before transferring me for interrogations, Diab said. Diab said that the interrogations lasted for seven consecutive hours. She also noted that the interrogations were focused on her activities as a journalist and her writings for the Lebanese newspaper al-Binaa. An Israeli police spokesperson was not immediately available for comment. Israeli authorities have often been the target of criticism for their longstanding crackdown on Palestinians freedoms of expression, which has led to the detention of scores of Palestinian journalists.

BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Two Palestinians were detained on Thursday night at al-Zaim checkpoint east of Jerusalem after a Palestinian from occupied East Jerusalem attempted to smuggle a Palestinian from the occupied West Bank into Israeli-controlled Jerusalem. Israeli spokesperson Luba al-Samri said that the Palestinian Jerusalemite was hiding a Palestinian in his twenties from the West Bank district of Hebron in the trunk of his car, in an attempt to smuggle the Palestinian into East Jerusalem without an Israeli-issued permit. Al-Samri said that the driver was a 35-year-old Palestinian from the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Issawiya. Both Palestinians were detained and transferred to interrogations with Israeli authorities, she said. While the international community recognizes East Jerusalem as an integral part of Palestinian territory, Israel officially annexed East Jerusalem — the future capital of any independent Palestinian state — in 1980. Israels annexation, checkpoints, and illegal separation wall has forced Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza to obtain Israeli-issued permits to enter East Jerusalem and Israel. Meanwhile, Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem, who hold blue identification cards, are allowed to pass Israeli checkpoints without permits and are permitted to drive Israeli cars — marked with a yellow license plate, whereas Palestinians with West Bank IDs would be detained by both Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) should they be found driving an Israeli car. However, Palestinians in East Jerusalem are not considered Israeli citizens, and instead hold temporary residency status, which can be revoked by Israeli authorities for various reasons. Thousands of Palestinians have had their Jerusalem IDs rescinded over the years. Analysts have pointed out that Israels permit system has cemented a regime of separation in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory, as the color of a Palestinians ID dictates where they can live, where they are allowed to travel, and even which roads they are permitted to drive on. Others have noted that the system is focused on splitting up the Palestinian population, in a divide and conquer tactic, in order to erode the Palestinian identity and prevent future unification or popular movements against Israeli policies.

Photo Credit: Screenshot Rasmea Odeh, 70, from Chicago, on Thursday was ordered by the District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan in Detroit to be deported for lying on her US citizenship application. Odeh, who was born in the Arab village of Lifta, on the outskirts of Jerusalem, neglected to tell immigration authorities she was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and had spent 10 years in Israeli security prison for her involvement in the 1969 PFLP bombings in Jerusalem in which two people were killed. She spent 10 years in prison out of her life sentence, before being released in a prisoner exchange with the PFLP in 1980 (Thank you, Mr. Begin). She then went to America, got her US immigrant visa in 1994 and became a citizen in 2004, lying both times about her criminal past. In 2014, Odeh pleaded guilty to falsifying her immigration applications and admitted that she lied about her criminal history. US District Judge Gershwin A. Drain ruled that Odeh be deported to her home country of Jordan and will be barred for life from re-entering the US. She told the court, in her defense: Dreams were turned into a nightmare and Zionists killed women and children without consideration and turned us into strangers in our own country, adding that the Israeli occupation of Palestine is a crime. The judge, for his part, interrupted her three times to tell her that the case is about false statements only. Which was unfair, really, since all she did was make false statements. The judge also fined Odeh $1,000, to show, as he put it, that there are consequences for lying on immigration paperwork making it a bizarre trajectory where the criminal goes downhill from murdering innocent civilians in a supermarket to lying on applications. According to the Chicago Tribune, in Chicago, Odeh is widely respected for her work with Arab immigrants. Was she preparing them for filling out their immigration applications?

With thousands of Israelis currently on vacation in Barcelona at the height of the summer tourism season, Jerusalem carefully monitored the situation there following Thursdays terrorist attack, trying to track down all Israelis believed to be in the area. As of 9:30 p.m. Israeli time, the Foreign Ministry put the number of Israelis who had not yet made contact with relatives in Israel at 31, and said there was no immediate indication that any Israelis were injured in the attack, which took place in the vicinity of the Maccabi kosher restaurant. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is also the countrys foreign minister, went to the ministrys situation room soon after the attack to monitor developments and speak by video conference with Israels ambassador in Madrid, Daniel Kutner. Netanyahu strongly condemned the attack, saying that tonight we saw again that terrorism strikes everywhere, and the civilized world must fight it together to defeat it. The Israeli Embassy dispatched a delegation of three diplomats to Barcelona in case any of the Israelis there were in need of assistance. Chief Rabbi of Barcelona Meir Bar-Hen said that all community events would be canceled, and that he was headed to the scene of the attack to offer his services. Bar- Hen said that it did not appear that Jews were targeted. Our hearts are with the victims and we wish them a full and speedy recovery, Bar-Hen said, adding that the Jewish community has faith in the Spanish security forces, which are doing all they can to secure the communitys institutions. Victor Sorenssen, the spokesperson for the Jewish community of Barcelona, told The Jerusalem Post that the Jewish institutions in the city were following the recommendations of the authorities to close for the next 24 hours as a precautionary measure. He expected that the synagogues would reopen by Shabbat. Theres a lot of confusion beyond the sadness and the shock, he said, noting that this is the first terrorist attack Barcelona has seen in many years, the last one carried out by Basque terrorist group ETA. So people are pretty scared… people arent used to it, Sorenssen said, noting the similarity of Thursdays attack with attacks that have struck other European cities in recent months. Sorenssen echoed Bar-Hens remark that the kosher restaurant did not appear to have been a target of the attack. I think it was not a target of the attack because in Las Ramblas there are all kinds of restaurants in the area… at least from what we know there is no relation. He said that he did not expect that the Jewish institutions would increase their security measures as they are already guarded by police and private security. Avigayil Heimowitz, an Israeli tourist, was close to the scene of the attack when it happened. I just saw people begin to run and so I ran too, without knowing what was happening, she told the Post. She described a scene of hysteria, and a high presence of police and helicopters. Her friend, Avital Stein, had been shopping at a store nearby, when the shop suddenly closed. I saw people running and didnt understand [what was happening] until the store I was in just decided to close, she told the Post. I asked what was going on and he [store employee] said there was an attack. A Chabad representative told the Post that his institute is located close to the scene of the attack, and that members of the Chabad staff were trying to reach the area to see if they were any Jewish casualties but that the police would not let them enter. If there are Jews there, we will try to find them and help them however we can, he said. We are waiting for the incident to be over. He confirmed that all Jewish institutes had closed until they received further instruction. Rabbi Dovid Libersohn, director of Chabad Lubavitch de Barcelona, which provides kosher certification to Maccabi, called it a terrible situation, and said we pray for the injured and for the families of those who were killed, and we are grateful, thank God, that nobody at the restaurant was harmed. Magen David Adom spokesman Zaki Heller said that from the moment we received reports of the terrorist attack in Barcelona, Magen David Adom has been in contact with the Foreign Affairs Ministry, the Red Cross and the security wing of Chabad. At this moment, it is not known whether Israelis or Jews were wounded in the attack, but that MDA was prepared to swiftly dispatch any medical response that may be required, as it has done in similar incidents. Shaul Hemo, CEO and owner of ART Tourism, spoke with The Israel Project about his experience at the Starbucks on the open pedestrian mall Las Ramblas, where the attack occurred. We have 600 Israeli clients all over the city, Hemo said. He himself was among the scores of Israelis who were in Las Ramblas at the time of the attack, many of whom ran into nearby stores for safety and were then locked in for over an hour by the police. It was about 5 p.m. lunch time and it was crowded, Hemo said. I was in Starbucks. I saw a lot of people running, hysterical, panicking. A car just smashed the people on the street. We are not used to it; it is the first time there was a terrorist attack in Barcelona. Limor Hasson told Channel 2 that she was in the Maccabi restaurant at the time of the attack. We had gone in to eat, she said. A woman came in and started yelling that there had been a terrorist attack. I understood it was a vehicular attack and they locked us in. Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely quickly condemned the attack in Barcelona, posting on Twitter: I condemn this deplorable act of terror and senseless death, and stand with Spain with prayers for the fast recovery of the victims. Diaspora Affairs Minister Naftali Bennett spoke to the head of the Spanish Jewish community. I conveyed to him my condolences and prayers for the wounded, and made it clear that the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs would aid the community in any way possible, Bennett said. At times like this, it is important to understand Islamic terror is attacking the values of freedom and democracy, in Barcelona, London, Paris and Jerusalem. The West must stand strong in the face of terror and defeat it wherever needed. The European Jewish Congress released a statement strongly condemning the attack. We are yet again witness to another terrorist attack in Europe perpetrated against innocent civilians, said congress president Dr. Moshe Kantor. They are choosing to strike again at our zest for life and our basic freedoms with their cult of death. It is becoming increasingly difficult to prevent this abuse of regular vehicles as their chosen instrument of murder. We stand with the Spanish people, and urge the authorities to bring to justice those who perpetrated this savage attack, including those who inspired it and those whose incitement encouraged it. Speaking on behalf of the Jewish communities of Europe, the organization said it extends its deepest condolences to the families of the victims and wishes a speedy and full recovery to those injured. World Jewish Congress president Ronald S. Lauder said: Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims of this attack and their families, and with all the people of Barcelona. “We are monitoring the events as they unfold with care and concern, and are in touch with the local Jewish community and its security groups. We pray that there will be no more victims. The Board of Deputies of British Jews released a statement, with senior vice president Richard Verber saying: We utterly condemn this brutal attack by terrorists intent on murdering and maiming innocent pedestrians in Barcelona. People of all faiths and none must come together to defeat this evil. The Simon Wiesenthal Center condemned the attack as well as its apparent anti-Jewish component, despite other indications that the kosher restaurant was not the target. It is still unclear if this was a cell of lone wolves or terrorists trained by ISIS, but the brutal targeting of tourists and Jewish institutions follow a pattern of attacks that include Pariss Hyperkasher Supermarket and the Brussels Jewish Museum, center officials said. We grieve for the families of the innocents, whatever faith or nationality, and urge Spanish authorities to secure Jewish institutions in their country, it added. It is also past due for the European Union and their member states to acknowledge and take action to curb burgeoning antisemitism in the mainstream of their societies and across the Internet. Share on facebook

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